FOREIGN INTRIGUES.
[Sidenote: Fitzmaurice wishes to make it a religious war.]
No doubt Fitzmaurice was encouraged in his seemingly desperate task by
the hope of succour from France or Spain. The fear of losing their lands
bound the Irish chiefs and nobles together, but that would not weigh one
grain with any foreign potentate. The chiefs were doubtless with few
exceptions Catholics, but that alone would not have tempted them to incur
the penalties of treason any more than it tempted Protestants like Cecil
or Perrott to conspire against Queen Mary. Sir Edmund Butler fought
against Sir Peter Carew, but not against the Queen. The Desmonds and
their allies fought against the St. Legers and Grenvilles and against
their hereditary foes of the House of Ormonde. The O'Neills feared
schemes of colonisation: if the Queen would let them alone they asked for
no other sovereign. Purely Irish interests were sure to be sacrificed by
France, Spain, and Rome; but Catholicism was an inheritance in which they
all shared.
[Sidenote: Catholics at Louvain.]
Fitzmaurice therefore lost no opportunity of giving the struggle a
religious character, and there were plenty of abuses in Ireland
calculated to scandalise the devout as well as to give a handle to those
who were actuated only by worldly motives. Irish priests at Louvain,
often men of honesty and virtue, took care to tell English travellers
that the Lord Deputy had one archbishopric and two bishoprics in farm,
Cashel for 40_l._, the others for less; that the revenues of one see
supported the grand falconer, and those of another the clerk of the
kitchen--'sufficient parsons no doubt to have such cure of Irish souls as
the English doctrine will permit them to have at this day.' The deanery
of St. Patrick's was appropriated to the support of the Great Seal, much
to the disgust of the Chancellor Weston, a pious and conscientious man,
who saw the abuse clearly enough. The parsonage of Dungarvan was assigned
for the maintenance of the Lord President. Laymen were appointed to
ecclesiastical dignities. English Jesuits who found their way to Ireland
could report these things on the Continent, adding that Sidney's
gentleness did their cause more harm than any severity could have
done.[196]
[Sidenote: Foreign rumours.]
Fitzmaurice was a sincere enthusiast, and no doubt he thought that the
Queen's misdeeds and excommunication would bring about a crusade; but the
days of Boniface were past, and little help was vouchsafed, though
rumours filled the air. A messenger from Spain touched at Cork Beg at the
mouth of Cork Harbour, where he left news for the seneschal, and then
went on to join Fitzmaurice in the Aherlow woods. He reported that a
great fleet was coming to Dingle. Some ships from Brest and Morlaix did
visit that secluded haven, but only to carry off Fitzmaurice's son, who
set quietly to work to seek recruits in Brittany. About thirty years
before Peter Strozzi had proposed to make a Calais on some Irish island;
this plan was now revived, but probably Delacroix reported against it.
[Sidenote: A suspicious Spaniard.]
There was much trade between Spain and the west of Munster, the
foreigners carrying away fish, beef, hides, and tallow in exchange for
wine and sometimes for arms. Don Juan de Mendoza came in a ship belonging
to John Hawkins, and by his charming manner at first disarmed Sidney's
suspicion; but a penniless Italian adventurer--a Lucchese named
Josefo--informed him that the Biscayan hidalgo had been sent by Alva to
excite an insurrection in Ireland. Josefo managed to get hold of the
Spaniard's letters, but the packet was so sealed as to defy tampering.
The Italian, who was known for his attachment to the Queen of Scots, and
who was perhaps a double traitor, offered to go to Alva for the purpose
of getting information. Sidney, at Mendoza's request, licensed Josefo to
go to France. His route necessarily lay through England, and the Lord
Deputy sent Cecil word that he might waylay him there and detain him or
not as he thought fit. Fitzwilliam, more cautious than Sidney, objected
to any foreigner becoming acquainted with Ireland as Mendoza had done;
and in this he was probably right. The Spaniard protested his innocence,
and affected to be aggrieved by a detention of eighteen months, while
speaking in high terms of Sidney's and of Gilbert's courtesy. Yet
Fitzwilliam's caution was evidently more to Burghley's taste, for three
German counts who had a mind to visit Ireland a year or two later
received introductions accompanied by secret instructions to show them
nothing which could decently be concealed.[197]
[Sidenote: Archbishop Fitzgibbon on the Continent, 1571.]
Foreign powers, however, were not likely to want information, for
Fitzmaurice sent Maurice Reagh Fitzgibbon, the papal Archbishop of
Cashel, to Philip. Fitzgibbon went from Spain to Bordeaux, where the
Bishop presented him with a good horse to ride during his stay. He told
certain Youghal merchants that he was come to seek help from the French
King, and was allowed openly to rig ships and to press men. The Guises
sent emissaries to keep Ireland disturbed, and the appearance of a fleet
under the Duke of Medina Celi was the appointed signal for a general
rising. A combined invasion by French and Spaniards was looked for daily,
and one of Burghley's spies, a Catholic by birth and in constant
communication with the Bishop of Ross, obtained accurate information as
to the hopes of the papal party in Ireland.
[Sidenote: Irish Catholics.]
The gentry of the Pale and of the greater part of Leinster were Catholics
at heart, looking for an opportunity to throw off the mask. In Ulster all
were ardent Catholics, banded together under the influence of the Jesuit
David Wolfe, whose orders, issued from his prison in Dublin Castle, were
generally obeyed. All Connaught was anti-English. In the Desmond half of
Munster all were Catholics and confederates, who expected a large army
from Spain and France, in which latter country Thomond had sowed good
seed. Ormonde, indeed, was unnaturally loyal, but that was the only dark
spot. The Ulster, Connaught, and Munster bishops were Catholics; those of
Leinster only Protestant. The Northern clergy looked to Raymond
O'Gallagher, Bishop of Derry, who had lately returned from Rome with a
large budget of orders; the Southern waited on the word of Maurice Reagh
Fitzgibbon, who was already in Spanish pay, and who was the head and
front of the whole conspiracy.[198]
[Sidenote: Fitzgibbon's account of Catholic Ireland.]
The case of the Catholic confederates can best be told in Fitzgibbon's
own words. In recommending his suit to Philip and to the Pope, he recited
the fidelity of Ireland to the Holy See during the 1,127 years which had
elapsed since the time of St. Patrick and Pope Celestine, and then
continued:--
'Notwithstanding that for fifty years they have been very often sorely
provoked, molested, and afflicted by divers schisms, errors, and heresies
of the unstable and restless sect and nation of the kingdom of England,
yet has God's clemency preserved all your people firm and steadfast in
their accustomed Catholic faith, obedience, and devotion, and has
inspired them not to acquiesce in the errors propounded to them.
'Your Holiness and your Catholic Majesty must know that all the nobility
and the entire people of that kingdom wish to walk as usual in the
footsteps of their forefathers, and to remain firm, steadfast, and
constant in the same faith and unity of the Catholic Church, and to
persevere to the death in perpetual obedience and devotion to the supreme
Pontiffs and to the Apostolic See. They hate and abhor sects and heresies
so much, that they prefer to leave their homes and go abroad rather than
to live under heretics, or to acquiesce in the errors and restlessness of
the English, who, in the last schism under Henry VIII. and Edward VI.,
plundered and devastated the churches and monasteries of Ireland,
proscribed and afflicted Catholic bishops and religious persons, and
threw the whole population into the greatest confusion. This Queen
Elizabeth has revived the tragedy, and has imprisoned the chief bishops
and other religious persons of the kingdom for their perseverance in the
faith and their Catholic obedience, and throughout the whole island has
executed the policy of her father and brother with the greatest
determination and vigour, sending new preachers and heretical bishops
with great store of heretical books to be circulated among the people.
Wherefore the people of that kingdom with all humility pray God without
ceasing that He will pity their calamities and end their afflictions, and
that He will condescend so to inspire the minds of his Holiness and of
the most clement Catholic King, that they may be pleased to make it their
immediate care that that people, devoted as it is to God, to his
Holiness, and to his Catholic Majesty, shall not be contaminated and
destroyed by the accursed and contagious heresy which flourishes in
England.
'Your Holiness and your Catholic Majesty must know that it has long been,
and now is, the highest desire of the nobility and all the people of that
kingdom to come absolutely under the patronage and protection of his
Holiness, and of the most clement and Catholic King of Spain, to whom all
men of position and property in that island look directly for the means
of avoiding the affliction and danger of the heresy and schism in the
ever-changing kingdom of England. They have, therefore, deliberately
resolved, with God's help and the favour of the most clement Catholic
King, to accept the person of any active Catholic Prince of his Catholic
Majesty's blood, whether of the Spanish or Burgundian branch, specially
appointed by him for the purpose, and to receive him and crown him as
their true, legitimate, and natural King, and thus to re-establish in
perpetuity the royal throne of that island,[199] and to venerate the
presence of one King, one faith, and one kingdom, the donation of that
island having been first obtained from and confirmed by the Apostolic
See. Thus they hope to remain henceforth for ever in their accustomed
obedience and devotion to the supreme Pontiff, and in union with the Holy
Catholic Mother Church of Christ, and in their pristine friendship and
alliance with the Royal House of Spain, from which nation the whole
nobility of that kingdom derived its origin.
'Not without cause do all the states of that island most strongly desire
this, since that kingdom in extent, in its temperate climate, in its
fertility, and in its wealth, might well vie with the kingdom of England,
if only it were ruled justly and piously by a religious resident Catholic
Prince or royal head. They all in general detest the tyrannous and
inconstant yoke of the English State, and still more its heresies, with
which they desire to have nothing in common, except neighbourliness and
Christian love.
'Underwritten are the names of those prelates, chiefs, barons, and nobles
who are thus well-disposed towards the Holy Apostolic See, and that most
potent prince the Lord Philip, King of all the Spains.' Then follows a
list of all the nobles, prelates, chiefs, and towns in Ireland who were
prepared to promote Spanish interests in their country, 'together with
those of many English residents in the island.' The Archbishop urged
Philip to seize at once all Irish forts and harbours, a proceeding which
the English were in no condition to prevent. 'Success,' he said,
'altogether depends on celerity, for your Majesty will be able to do with
10,000 men and a little expense what you will not afterwards be able to
accomplish with 100,000 men and all available power.' We know from other
sources how weak the English Government was at this time, and how
difficult it would have been to dislodge even 5,000 Spaniards; but to
ask Philip to do anything quickly was as vain as speaking to the winds or
writing upon the running water.[200]
[Sidenote: Fitzgibbon too sanguine. Philip II. hesitates.]
Yet Fitzgibbon certainly did not underrate the importance to Spain of an
Irish alliance. Few will think that the resources of Ireland were at any
time equal to those of England. Of the twelve prelates whom he enumerates
not more than three or four were in a condition to give an invader
material help. Among the six Earls whom he mentions Desmond was a
prisoner in England, Ormonde a loyal subject of Queen Elizabeth, and
Clanricarde at least not actively disloyal. There was no Earl of Tyrone.
Thomond and Clancare were ready enough both to rebel and to submit when
pressed. The Irish chiefs were all Catholics no doubt, but nothing like
continuous combined action could be expected from clans who had from time
immemorial been fighting against each other. From the chartered towns a
Catholic prince might expect much sympathy, but very little open aid;
England had always been strong enough to punish them. Forty years before,
Charles V., after a careful investigation, had made up his mind that the
Desmonds could not be maintained against the Tudors, and the more he
learned about the matter the less likely was Philip to disagree with his
father's opinions.
[Sidenote: Thomas Stukeley.]
Some account must now be given of one of the most extraordinary
adventurers which even the England of the sixteenth century produced.
Thomas Stukeley, a gentleman belonging to an old English family in North
Devon, having run through his younger brother's portion by riotous living
while in the Duke of Suffolk's retinue, sought after his patron's death
to enrich himself at the expense of others. Claiming a legacy from
another West-countryman, Serjeant Prideaux, he broke into the testator's
house and searched his coffers in spite of an injunction to the contrary.
He tried piracy for a while, and was imprisoned in the Tower at the suit
of an Irish gentleman whom he had robbed. His friends managed to procure
his enlargement, and he soon persuaded the only daughter and heiress of
Alderman Curtis to marry him. When his father-in-law died he spent his
money in every kind of dissipation. If a balladmonger of the day may be
believed, he squandered 100_l._ a day, selling at last the blocks of tin
with which the Alderman, probably a Cornishman or Devonian, had paved the
yard of his London house. When all was gone he deserted his wife.
'Make much of me, dear husband,' she did say.
'I'll make much more of thee,' said he,
'Than any one shall, verily:'
And so he sold her clothes, and went his way.
His magnificent patronage had been extended to travellers, one of whom
dedicated to him a description of the countries bordering on the Baltic,
and, like other Devon men, he looked to the sea as to his native element.
The Queen licensed him to found a colony in Florida, and he promised in
his usual vein of braggadocio to write to her 'in the style of princes,
to our dearest sister.'
[Sidenote: Stukeley's adventures. He goes to Spain.]
The Queen directed Sussex to give his flotilla shelter in the Irish
ports, and from that time he is connected more or less closely with the
history of Ireland. He had made friends with Shane O'Neill during his
residence in London. Stukeley never went to Florida, but with a ship of
400 tons, containing 100 tall soldiers besides mariners, he appeared upon
the coast of Munster in his true character of pirate. 'I fear,' said Sir
Thomas Wrothe, 'he will make the sea his Florida. He hath been reached at
to be catched, but it will not be yet.' Caught he was at last, and in
great danger of hanging, for Elizabeth was very angry at his piracies;
but Shane O'Neill wrote on behalf of his old acquaintance, professing to
believe it quite impossible that he could have done anything against
Queen or laws. Even Arnold was captivated, or perhaps was determined to
see things in the same light as Shane. At all events, Stukeley found some
favour, for he was allowed to enter into recognisances as to the charges
of piracy, and to go back to Ireland with recommendations from Cecil,
Leicester, and Pembroke. Sidney not only showed him favour, but at
Shane's own request employed the desperate adventurer as a go-between,
and the success of the negotiations was such as might have been expected
from the diplomatist's character. Stukeley next persuaded Sir N. Bagenal
to sell him his office of Marshal and his lands in Ireland for 3,000_l._
Irish. Sidney was inclined to sanction the bargain, but the notion of
Stukeley being employed in such an office was much disliked in England.
Cecil did not approve of it, and the Lord Deputy had gently to remind him
that he had himself written in Stukeley's favour. Elizabeth, who seems to
have correctly judged the adventurer's character, railed at him in good
set terms, would not hear of his appointment, and ordered him to be sent
home to answer the charges made against him in the Admiralty Court. Those
who love to depreciate Elizabeth should remember how well she saw through
the specious villain who deceived Burghley, Sidney, and Philip. It is
likely enough that Stukeley would never have paid Bagenal. Had he found
the 3,000_l._ it would probably have been either the profits of piracy or
a bribe from Shane O'Neill. He neither returned to England nor gave up
his evil courses, being soon afterwards in trouble for buying stolen
goods from pirates. Sidney remained his friend, and placed him in
temporary possession of the seneschalship of Wexford, vacant first by the
absence and then by the death of Sir Nicholas Heron; but the Queen was
obdurate, and the coveted office was given to Nicholas White, against
whom Stukeley immediately began to intrigue, representing the successful
candidate as a creature of Ormonde and an enemy to the Lord Deputy. He
was rash enough to say that he did not care a straw for the Queen or her
office, and finding his powers for mischief too limited in Ireland, and
himself in danger of arrest, he went to Spain and offered his services to
Philip. Mendoza assured Cecil that he knew nothing about this journey,
but of course his statement was not believed.[201]
[Sidenote: Stukeley and Fitzgibbon in Spain.]
Knowing Stukeley's antecedents, it is extraordinary that Sidney should
have taken no pains to stop him, and should have believed that he and his
motley following were going to London to see the Queen. Stukeley had
already been some time in communication with Spain, and it is impossible
to believe that Sidney was privy to his designs; but it is hard to
understand the treatment he received.
[Sidenote: English and Irish parties there.]
He was allowed to purchase the 'Trinity,' of Bridgewater, and to spend
five weeks at Waterford waiting for a wind and lading a cargo of malt,
wheat, beans, and fourteen horses. The crew consisted of twenty-eight
men, English and Irish except one Italian named Alessandro Fideli: only
Fideli and the pilot knew the ship's destination. A run of five days
brought them to Vivero, in Galicia, whence Stukeley sent Fideli and
Raymond Digby to the King at Seville. Archbishop Fitzgibbon afterwards
informed Philip that many of Stukeley's company were in despair when they
found themselves in Spain, not daring to go back to England or Ireland,
and destitute of resources. 'He threatens them in case they attempt to
return to their country or go elsewhere to put them in prison or
something worse--that is, to throw them into the sea, for they are in his
ship, as he treated others on a former occasion. Your Majesty can be well
informed of all this by the same Irishmen who are here or in Galicia on
this condition, that the same Thomas Stukeley be never told who gave the
information; for on other terms they will never tell the truth, fearing
this man, who has always been most singularly revengeful in his
wickedness.' Stukeley's messengers returned with 200 ducats, and Philip
afterwards sent a pursuivant with 1,000 more to bring their leader to
Madrid, where he or his son received a further sum of 3,000 ducats.
Stukeley was lodged at the King's cost, a Catalonian knight of Calatrava,
Don Francis de Merles, being assigned to him as companion. An emissary of
Cecil's was from the first at work to sow dissension between Stukeley
and Archbishop Fitzgibbon, who was already disliked by the Duke of Feria.
De Silva, the late ambassador in England, was consulted as to the nature
of the Irish and Scotch, and he reported that both nations were beggarly,
proud, and traitorous. Whatever value Philip may have attached to this
opinion, he lavished favours on Stukeley, knighted him, and gave him sums
amounting to 21,000 ducats within a few months; 500 reals a day were
allowed him for table money, and the King sent his son to Alcala to be
educated in the Prince of Orange's company. Stukeley now called himself
Duke of Ireland, and made more show than any two dukes at the Spanish
Court. The Duke of Feria gave him horses and armour, he lived splendidly
in his village near Madrid, and he was allowed to hope for a force of
10,000 men and the twenty-six ships which had brought Philip's queen to
Spain. Some said that an expedition under the Duke of Medina Celi was
intended for Ireland, and that the whole island would rise as soon as his
flag appeared on the coast.[202]
[Sidenote: Rumours of invasion.]
In France, too, the stir among the exiles was great. Emissaries from Alva
spread a report at Paris that the Duke was going to do something in
Scotland or Ireland about March 1571. Malicorne, who had represented
France at the marriage of the King of Spain, returned with news that
Julian Romero, an old soldier who had been wounded at St. Quentin, had
actually been despatched to Ireland with 3,000 men. Francis Walsingham,
who was beginning his great career as ambassador at Paris, had a
conversation with Charles IX., who told him that he hated the Guise
faction and that he supposed Queen Elizabeth did so too. Walsingham could
only repeat what he heard, but he must have been reassured by the
magnificent contempt with which his mistress treated all these rumours.
She informed him that certain savage Irish rebels of no value had gone to
Spain nominally for conscience sake, whereas they were of no religion,
but wholly given to bestiality. Stukeley had joined them, and tried to
make himself important by superfluously spending of other men's goods, he
being in fact not worth a 'marmaduc.' She marvelled that king or minister
should be taken in by such a fellow, and could not believe in Julian
Romero and his invasion. It had never been her practice to employ
Protestant refugees, of which there were plenty in England, in intrigues
against their lawful sovereign, the King of Spain. Walsingham was
instructed to complain about the French captain who brought away
Fitzmaurice's son, and he was not to be put off with evasive answers
either from the French king or from the Spanish ambassador at Paris. The
Spanish ambassador, with a proud and disdainful countenance, denied all
knowledge of Stukeley or Romero. 'They were no Spaniards who had that
enterprise in hand.' The French King promised to punish Mons. De la Roche
and the other officers who had meddled in Irish plots; but Walsingham
believed neither of them, and advised the Queen to revenge herself by
giving trouble in Flanders. The Netherlanders indeed tied Philip's hands;
for France was not yet a Spanish province with Guise for viceroy, and it
was impossible to break conclusively with England until French influence
in Flanders should be no longer feared.[203]
[Sidenote: Philip II.'s ideas.]
When Stukeley arrived in Spain Archbishop Fitzgibbon recommended him to
Philip without knowing much about him. He said he was daring and clever,
that he had a knowledge of Irish harbours and was accompanied by Irish
mariners, and that he bitterly hated his own country, to which he could
never hope to return. But Fitzgibbon, like Rinuccini in later times,
found that there was an irreconcilable difference between English and
Irish refugees. The former were quite ready to get rid of Elizabeth, and
not to be too particular about the means; but then Mary Stuart must be
their queen. Their Catholic England once established, they had no more
idea than Mary Tudor had of suffering an independent Ireland, or an
Ireland under foreign sovereignty. Philip knew enough about his late
wife's dominions to see that the lesser island would be a most burdensome
possession, and that no possible England would ever allow him to hold it
quietly. He lavished favours on Stukeley, who was no doubt amusing and
might annoy his dear sister-in-law; but he professed ignorance as to the
projector's plans, and perhaps never had any serious notion of employing
him against Ireland. The island was poor and the people barbarous, and no
revenue could be expected. He had trouble enough already with the
Flemings, who had long been pouring across the Channel rather than submit
to Alva's tyranny, enriching England and draining his own exchequer. To
invade Ireland would be to add an English fleet to his other troubles,
and very possibly to cause a French occupation of Flanders. He is said to
have contemplated seizing the Scilly Islands, which might have been
valuable as a protection to Spanish trade; but this idea, if ever
entertained, was abandoned for similar reasons. The Irish had offered
their country to Philip to escape from England, in the belief, perhaps,
that it might be left to themselves. Fitzgibbon saw clearly that this
could never be. Had England remained Catholic he would have preferred her
rule; now that Catholicism was proscribed he was perforce for the
Spaniard.
[Sidenote: Fitzgibbon thwarts Stukeley. The Pope discourages Fitzgibbon.]
Fitzgibbon told Philip Stukeley's very unedifying history. At first he
had recommended him as likely to be useful, but was now convinced that he
was an impostor. 'I cannot,' he said, 'believe that the Irish princes
would wish that a private English gentleman should have command in the
slightest degree in their kingdom, while they with such obstinacy resist
the Queen of England, who has so often offered them peace on good
conditions. Therefore, I consider his coming as an act of deception, or
an act devoid of common sense, for, as far as I can understand, he has
received no commission from the princes of Ireland for your Majesty or
any one else.' The adventurer retorted with charges against the
prelate's private character, which, whether true or false, had certainly
some weight with Philip. Stukeley may have cherished some mad idea of
ruling Ireland as a Spanish viceroy. In any case, it is likely that he
ill-treated the Irishmen who followed him, for they deserted to the
Archbishop of Cashel, who refused to give them up. The Court were divided
into two parties--Ruy Gomez, favouring the Archbishop, and the Duke of
Feria, with his English wife, siding with Stukeley. There was a further
difficulty with the Pope, who considered Ireland his own property, and
thought Philip but a lukewarm son of the Church. It was not so very long
since Tivoli and Ostia had been occupied by Spanish troops, and the city
saved by a sort of accident. Did not the Catholic King, the great-nephew
of Catherine of Arragon, the grandson of the great Isabella, keep the
peace with his sister-in-law, and bear patiently the many insults of that
excommunicated heretic, Anne Boleyn's bastard daughter? The cardinal
secretary informed the zealous Irish priest that the Pope was much
surprised at his presumption in moving in such matters without special
license. He might easily have remembered that Ireland was a fief of the
Church, and inalienable without the will of the lord. His Holiness would
do nothing unless Philip would sue to him for a grant, and the cardinal
secretary would merely venture to guess that such a suit would not be
denied. He might, with at least equal probability, have guessed that it
never would be made.[204]
[Sidenote: Fitzgibbon's excuses to the Pope.]
Fitzgibbon was horrified at meeting opposition from Rome. He was a
fugitive, and his flock was at the mercy of wolves. His pall had been
carried off by the English heretics, and he besought the Pope to send him
another. If Ireland thought his Holiness alone could have delivered her
'from the jaws of the English,' she would have asked no other master.
But other help was clearly necessary; France had none to give, and no
State was more orthodox than Spain, which could alone relieve Irish
Catholics. Only prompt help could avail, for the power of England
increased daily, not only in Ireland, but in France, Flanders, Scotland,
and Germany; Catholic interests, indeed, were threatened all over
Europe.[205]
[Sidenote: Stukeley in Spain. Rumours.]
While Pius V. hesitated and procrastinated, Stukeley swaggered about in
Spain, and affected to take the interests of English Catholicism under
his protection. A certain Oliver King, a soldier of fortune, was at
Madrid, and was accused by Stukeley of heresy; but his daily attendance
at Mass, where he 'knocked his breast' devoutly, obtained for King the
advocacy of Don Francesco de Merles, and his persecutor was unable to
bring him before the Inquisition. He was, however, stripped and banished,
and was fain to pass the Pyrenees in the snow, eluding the bravoes whom
Stukeley had sent after him. When in safety he wrote to Cecil, giving an
account of Stukeley's proceedings, and praying God that he might not see
England as he had seen France, the land waste, and the women at the mercy
of foreign hirelings. Traitors, he said, abounded, who gaped for Queen
Elizabeth's death, and Stukeley boasted that he would give Ireland to
Philip. Some 4,000 desperadoes had been got together; rascally ill-armed
Bezonians, but officered by old beaten men of war, such as Julian Romero.
An expedition was expected to sail almost immediately from Vigo, and
King, who had a knowledge of military matters and mining, eagerly offered
his services, provided the Queen would pardon him. Another Englishman,
who had been in regular correspondence with Norris and Walsingham, was
imprisoned for forty-seven days on suspicion, and nearly died of
ill-treatment. On being released he was ordered to quit the kingdom. He
agreed with King that a descent on Ireland would take place in March or
April 1571, and added that Alva had a plan to occupy Caistor and
Yarmouth.[206]
[Sidenote: Fitzgibbon goes to France, and negotiates with England.]
Finding that no expedition left Vigo, and that the King trusted Stukeley
more than him, Fitzgibbon determined to see what he could do in France.
At Bordeaux he was received with honour by the bishop, who gave him a
horse to ride during his stay. On arriving at Paris he was at once waited
on by Captain Thomas, a native of the Pale in the French service, who
offered him such courtesies as were in the English Ambassador's power. He
asked and received an introduction to the Cardinal of Lorraine, to whom
he manifested his own importance and the weakness of Ireland. Thomas, who
had access to the Cardinal, let him know that Ireland was strong enough
to resist a multitude--a statement which would have been hardly borne out
by Sidney or Fitzwilliam. With better reason the captain reminded his
Eminence that Fitzgibbon was a Geraldine, and that the heads of that
House were in prison. The Cardinal's demeanour then became cool, and the
poor Archbishop began to think that after all Queen Elizabeth might be
his best card. A second Irish soldier was appointed to watch him, and to
report anything of importance that he might let fall. The Queen would not
promise to restore him to his see, but was willing to pardon him, and to
give him as good a living in Ireland. If Walsingham thought him
insincere, he was to pump every possible secret out of him, and then try
to get him given up by the French King as a rebel. The Archbishop's terms
were a pardon under the Great Seal, restoration to his see, and license
to go back to Ireland with eight companions; in consideration of which he
was ready to be a loyal subject, and to let her Majesty have all 'news.'
Being pressed to substitute 'secrets' for 'news,' he said he was very
unwilling to do anything which might deprive him of a future asylum in
Spain or elsewhere. Should the Queen think fit to restore him to his
country and place--he said nothing about the lost pall--he would show to
Walsingham in writing 'both the names of the conspiracy, and also the
remedy.' But Elizabeth would not hear of his returning to Ireland except
by way of England, and he was far too wary for that.
[Sidenote: Later movements of Fitzgibbon.]
He sought an interview with Anjou, but here Captain Thomas was before
him, and told the French prince that Ireland was poor, and only an
expense to the Queen, and that the Archbishop was of small credit, having
been banished for brawling. Monsieur then sent the exiled prelate two
hundred crowns, and said he was afraid he should not have time to see
him. Fitzgibbon seemed for a moment inclined to go to England, and sue
for pardon; but 'sinister practices' prevented this, if it had ever been
seriously intended. The Archbishop went off to Nantes and afterwards
found his way to Scotland, where he suffered imprisonment. Returning
again to the Continent, he continued to intrigue against Elizabeth, and
died at Oporto in 1578 without having effected anything of importance.
Captain Thomas continued to draw his sixteen crowns per month from the
French Government, and received thanks from Queen Elizabeth, but she does
not seem to have conferred those substantial rewards at which Walsingham
hinted. She had conveniently discovered in the course of the intrigue
that the Archbishop was not of much importance, and that he was no
relation to the Earl of Devon.[207]
FOOTNOTES:
[196] Sir Francis Englefield to Dorothy Devereux, _Domestic Calendar_,
April 19, 1570; same to the Duchess of Feria, _ib._, April 20. Roger
Hooker, a layman, was Dean of Leighlin in 1580, and probably for some
time before: this was a strange experience for the father of Richard
Hooker.
[197] John Corbine to Cecil, March 2, 1569; Sidney to Cecil, April 18,
1570; Fitzwilliam to Burghley, April 7 and May 7, 1571.
[198] John Corbine to Cecil, March 21, 1569; Sidney to Cecil, April 18,
1570; Mendoza to Cecil, Nov. 9; Norris to the Queen, _Foreign Calendar_,
Jan. 3, 1571; Viscount Decies to Fitzwilliam, March 28. Note by William
Herlle, April. For an account of the spy Herlle, see Froude, chap. xxi.
[199] 'Istius insulæ rursum erigere et stabilire regale solium.'
[200] Statement presented to the King of Spain by the Archbishop of
Cashel, on the part of the Irish Catholics, _Spicilegium Ossoriense_, i.
59.
[201] For Stukeley's early life, see Wright's _Elizabeth_, i. 40 and 150.
Wrothe to Cecil, Nov. 14, 1564; Shane O'Neill to the Queen, June 18 and
July 28, 1565; the Queen to Sussex, June 30, 1563, in _Haynes_; Arnold to
the Privy Council, June 23, 1565; Sidney to Cecil, March 7, 1565;
Stukeley to same, same date; Cecil to Sidney, March 27, 1566; Queen to
same, March 31 and July 6; Sidney to Cecil, April 17; Cecil to Sidney,
Oct. 24, 1568; N. White to Sidney, March 10, 1569; Deposition of Richard
Stafford, June 10, 1569, as to a conversation with Stukeley one year
before; Mendoza to Cecil, Nov. 9, 1570. Stukeley sailed from Waterford,
April 17, 1570.
[202] Robert Hogan or Huggins to Sir H. Norris, August 12, 1570, in the
_Foreign Calendar_; Sir H. Norris to the Queen, Jan. 3, 1571, in the
same; Memorandum by Archbishop Fitzgibbon, Dec. 16, 1570, in _Spicilegium
Ossoriense_, vol. i.
[203] Sir H. Norris to Cecil, Oct. 29, 1570; Walsingham to same, Jan. 27,
Feb. 25, and March 5, 1571; Cardinal Chatillon to same, Feb. 2; Buckhurst
to same, Feb. 24; the Queen to Walsingham, Feb. 11. All the above are in
the _Foreign Calendar_. Archbishop Fitzgibbon to Philip II., July 26,
1570, in _Spicilegium Ossoriense_, vol. i.
[204] According to Froude, vol. x. p. 525, Philip called the Irish
'salbaxes,' or savages. Henry Cobham to Burghley, April 27, 1571, in
_Foreign Calendar_. Cardinal Alciati to the Archbishop of Cashel, June
13, 1570, in _Spicilegium Ossoriense_, i. 64.
[205] Archbishop of Cashel to Cardinal Alciati, Aug. 1570, in
_Spicilegium Ossoriense_, i. 64.
[206] Oliver King to Cecil, Feb. 18, 1571; and Robert Huggins to
Walsingham, Jan. 25; both in the _Foreign Calendar_.
[207] Walsingham to Burghley, April 4; Queen to Walsingham, April 8;
Walsingham to Burghley, April 11, 19, and 22; Queen to Walsingham, May 5;
Walsingham to Burghley, May 14.--_Foreign Calendar_, 1571. Brady's
_Episcop. Succession_, Art. 'MacGibbon;' Digges's _Complete Ambassador_.
Walsingham says 'Captain Thomas' was a son of Judge Bathe, and that his
brother was receiver of customs at Drogheda.